Lately I’ve been craving bold flavors, whether it be spicy or just simply something not bland. Here in Spain, although the food is delicious and wonderful, it is often lacking strong flavors, especially spicy ones, which are basically nonexistent.
So I looked on my pinterest boards for some inspiration (follow me @alainarydzewski), and found two recipes that seemed to go together seamlessly, and I’ve been eating them for lunch for quite a few days now.
The first is a jalapeño popper-inspired sandwich, and is super easy to make. In fact, both of these recipes are super easy to make. If you have ever read any of my food posts before, you know that easy to make is an essential characteristic to most of my recipes.
Anyways, here’s what you need:
-sliced jalapeños
-cream cheese
-yellow American cheese (sandwich style)
-wheat bread (or whatever kind you prefer)
Here’s what you do:
1. Put the American cheese on the bread, one slice of cheese on each slice of bread.
2. Spread cream cheese over one slice of cheese, and then layer jalapeños on top of the cream cheese.
3. Cook the sandwich as if you were making a grilled cheese, and voilà!
Now for the second recipe. It takes slightly longer, but only because it involves a lot of chopping, and is what I call a Mediterranean salad.
Here’s what you need:
-half of a large red onion or one small red onion
-2 peppers (whatever colors you like)
-kidney beans (approx. two cans)
-garbanzo beans (approx. two cans)
-fresh parsley
-half a lemon
-black pepper, salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar (to taste)
-one clove of garlic
What you do:
1. Rinse, chop and mix all of these ingredients together, minus the lemon.
2. Squeeze lemon juice into salad and mix well.
The combination of these two dishes provides both the spicy and smooth flavors I was craving, and complement each other well.